Integrity becoming rare trait

Have you heard of Matrix Business services? Or cFrist? Authbridge, Onicra? Well, none of them of listed but do not be surprised if you see these companies making a beeline for the IPO market a couple of years from now – what with business booming and these companies needing money for growth.

All these are “employee verification” companies. The main duty of these companies is to do a background check on all the information provided by a candidate in his/her resume to track those which are fraudsters. Yes, making up tall claims, false information, concealing information, even fake degrees; all these have become a part and parcel of potential employees and their resumes.

Fake CVs have become a menace – 23% of background checks on potential employees conducted in India between Jan 2014 to April 2015 contained discrepancies. This means almost every third person out of every 10 was lying. Out of this, maximum, some 52% discrepancies were about education, 11% were to do with previous employment data, 3% on their qualification date. And we hold another dubious distinction – India ranks fourth in Asia-Pacific in the number of discrepancies found in resumes. This mad ambition to make it big, make money, greed, get ahead at any cost has led to an increase in these unscrupulous practices.  And India Inc is dealing with this menace by conducting many layered screening tests and hiring agencies like those mentioned earlier to verify data mentioned in resumes.

It is sad that integrity has today become a victim in this new era of living life to the fullest. Yes, this is another facet of the “I, me, myself” world in which we live – going down to any level is fine as long as thet get the job. A scary situation indeed!